Meet the Building Movement Project staff and advisors
Project Staff
The BMP Staff is comprised of committed individuals who bring a diversity of professional backgrounds and expertise to the organization's work on leadership, movement building, and service and social change.
Research Assistant
Maham Ali
Maham Ali (She/Her) serves as a Research Associate for the Building Movement Project. Currently pursuing her PhD at The Ohio State University, Maham utilizes quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine how nonprofit organizations engage with and respond to the growing demands for racial and social justice. Recently, she presented her research titled “#Tweeting for Social Justice: Community Foundations’ Social Media Activity in Response to Black Lives Matter (BLM)” at the ARNOVA (Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action) conference. Her research contributes to the fields of nonprofit management, public affairs, and organization studies.
Prior to embarking on her doctoral studies, Maham held several management roles in nonprofit organizations. In her most recent position with United Way, she collaborated with multiple local nonprofit organizations to expand services for students and families in community schools. Maham also remains actively involved as a volunteer with organizations that strive to bring about social change through community engagement. As a first-generation college student herself, Maham mentors other first-generation college students, drawing upon her own experiences and knowledge to support and guide them.
Director, Race Equity Assessment
Mercedes Brown
Mercedes Brown is the Director of Race Equity Assessment at the Building Movement Project. In this new role, she is charged with launching and bringing to scale BMP’s new organizational race equity assessment process to better equip the nonprofit sector with the foundational capacities needed to build more racially equitable workplaces. Mercedes brings deep expertise in public policy, data analytics, and equitable cross-systems transformation through nearly 17 years of experience in the social services sector. Throughout her career in government and the nonprofit sector, she has always led with her passion for advancing social and racial justice through complex systems change.
Before joining the Building Movement Project staff, she served as Michigan Director at the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH), where she established CSH’s strategic priorities for the State of Michigan and managed a statewide portfolio of cross-sector projects aimed at ensuring equitable access to high-quality housing and services for marginalized communities. Mercedes holds a Master’s in Social Work from the University of Michigan, where she currently works as a part-time lecturer teaching policy and community organizing courses. She also holds a Juris Doctor from Western Michigan University. Mercedes serves on the Board of Directors for the Washtenaw Housing Alliance and the United Way of Washtenaw County’s Community Impact Committee. In her spare time, Mercedes enjoys baking, dabbling in interior design work, and traveling with her fiancé.
Senior Manager of Finance, Grants and Operations
Maggie Deptola
Maggie Deptola (she/her) is the Senior Manager of Finance, Grants and Operations for the Building Movement Project. She is responsible for building and maintaining systems that support the organization’s administrative functions.
Maggie is passionate about economic mobility, educational equity, and capacity-building for nonprofits. Her previous roles include consulting with local and state governments on topics such as capacity-building and program design, a brief stint in tech, and supporting a variety of nonprofits in program and operations roles. Most recently, she served as the first Chief Operating Officer of Coded by Kids, a Philadelphia-based tech education nonprofit serving K-12 students ages in the mid-Atlantic region.
Maggie has a bachelor’s degree in international area studies from Drexel University and a master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Pennsylvania. She serves as the Vice Chair of the Philadelphia Robotics Coalition.
Associate, Administration and Finance
Ava Fields
Ava Fields (she/her/hers) is the Associate of Finance and Administration, where she focuses on building and maintaining BMP’s operationss systems and supports administration.
Outside of BMP, Ava Fields is a Horror Advocate, Crime Trends Expert, Researcher, Ghostwriter, Cryptanalyst, and Poet based in Boston. After graduating with a Master of Science in Criminal Behavior in 2016, and with a long history of community organizing, she began to work in the non-profit sector with a focus on fair and equitable practice for engaging independent creators, including developing a fiscal sponsorship program to build organizational capacity.
Senior Director, Strategic Initiatives
Deepa Iyer
Deepa Iyer is a South Asian American writer, strategist, and lawyer. Her work is rooted in Asian American, South Asian, Muslim, and Arab communities where she spent fifteen years in policy advocacy and coalition building in the wake of the September 11th attacks and ensuing backlash. Currently, Deepa leads projects on solidarity and social movements at the Building Movement Project, a national nonprofit organization that catalyzes social change through research, strategic partnerships, and resources for movements and nonprofits. She conducts workshops and trainings, uplifts narratives through the Solidarity Is This podcast, and facilitates solidarity strategy for cohorts and networks. Previously, she has held positions at Race Forward, South Asian Americans Leading Together, the US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center, and the Asian American Justice Center.
Deepa’s first book, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future (The New Press, 2015), chronicles community-based histories in the wake of 9/11 and received a 2016 American Book Award. Deepa’s most recent book (2022), a guide based on the social change ecosystem map that she created, is called Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection. Her debut children’s picture book, We Are The Builders!, was released in the fall of 2024.
Deepa serves on the advisory council of the Emergent Fund. She has been an adjunct professor in Asian American Studies and Public Policy programs. Deepa is an immigrant who moved to Kentucky from Kerala (India) when she was twelve years old. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame Law School and Vanderbilt University.
Senior Director, Institutional Advancement
Romana Lee-Akiyama
Romana Lee-Akiyama (she/her) joins the Building Movement Project as the Senior Director, Institutional Advancement after having served as the executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Public Engagement at the City of Philadelphia. Romana is a global cross-sector leader at the intersection of social change, equity, community well-being, and the arts and culture. Throughout her career, she has served as a skilled advocate and partner to nonprofit and community-based leaders and organizations, grantmakers and funders, and government institutions. Her expertise lies in unknotting challenging situations and complex systems to drive towards equitable results through strategy, planning and engagement.
Romana is civically engaged and active in her community. She is the founding director and curator of the Chen Lok Lee Legacy Project, which she founded in 2021 as a tribute to her late father, an artist, printmaker and professor whose immigrant story continues to inspire the next generation of artists. As a curator and facilitator, Romana has focused on bringing together diverse communities to explore commonalities and challenge biases, and to create environments of welcoming and belonging. She serves as the Co-Vice Chair of the Pennsylvania State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a member of the Penn Museum Community Advisory Group, Board of Advisors to the Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, and a board member of Live Work Philadelphia.
Romana holds a BA in International Relations from Tufts University and a Master of Social Service and Master of Law and Social Policy from the Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. She is a 2023 Marshall Memorial Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and a Fellow with the Center for Asian Pacific American Women. Romana enjoys practicing and teaching yoga in her spare time.
Communications and Operations Associate
Jasmine Leeward
Jasmine (they/them) serves as the Communications and Operations Associate at Building Movement Project. Jasmine develops communications strategies, performs operational and administrative tasks, and supports various projects across the organization.
Jasmine is a visual artist and storyteller committed to the delicate work of challenging state violence and shifting culture towards Black liberation, particularly in the U.S. South. Jasmine has worked as a communications strategist in different movement formations since 2016. They are a 2021 Rockwood Leadership JustFilms fellow and a 2022 Broadway Advocacy Coalition Artivism Fellow.
Senior Manager of Partnerships
Héctor Malvido
For over 10 years, Héctor Malvido (he/him/él) has been deeply involved in policy, advocacy, and direct service in a variety of roles that have taken on issues ranging from tenant protections and homelessness, food insecurity, police reform, and immigration injustice.
Héctor’s faith in the inherent power and teachings that communities possess has informed his approach in creating meaningful and community-led changes that move the needle closer towards self-determination and healing.
Since moving to the Bay Area in 2015, Héctor has worked on the ground, building bridges between service providers, advocacy organizations, and residents to close the gaps that exist across sectors and build community power and transform systems. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his work has shifted dramatically to respond to the emergent needs of the communities that have been the most impacted, working to pass eviction moratoriums, tenant protections, and close the racial equity gaps that prevent access to rent relief and COVID vaccines.
Policy Analyst
Priti Nemani
Priti (pronounced “Pree-thee”) Nemani (she/her) is a Policy Analyst with Building Movement Project, offering assistance with research, writing, and support of solidarity cohorts. Prior to joining BMP, Priti spent a decade as a private community lawyer serving families and small businesses in the areas of real estate, business law, and trust law, with a particular focus on providing affordable and accessible representation and supporting new businesses founded by entrepreneurs of color through pro bono offerings. Priti holds a Bachelor’s in Comparative Literature (Spanish/English) from the University of Michigan, a J.D. from Northern Illinois University College of Law, and a Master of Laws in Taxation from Washington University in St. Louis.
Outside of work, Priti often informally organizes and fundraises for causes that matter to her, including dismantling anti-Blackness within communities of color, abolition, amplifying suicide awareness and prevention efforts uplifting minority-owned businesses, and supporting public educators in need of classroom resources. Priti is interested in understanding how structural racism operates within communities of color through policy and law and how transformative solidarity can help us repurpose and reimagine existing systems, such as real estate ownership. She is an active mentor and sponsor for law students and lawyers of color and loves working to empower emerging professionals to honor their personal identities in the workplace.
Race Equity Assessment Coordinator
Camryn Snell
Camryn Snell (she/hers) serves as the Race Equity Assessment Associate for the Building Movement Project. In this role, Camryn is charged with supporting the launch and development of the BB4C, BMP’s race equity assessment for nonprofit organizations. Ultimately, she aspires to motivate and support nonprofits in their development of the foundational capacities necessary for building more racially equitable workplaces. Camryn firmly believes that the current workplace culture is a reflection of our popular culture. As such, she hopes that these shifts will be realized throughout our communities.Camryn brings both lived and learned experiences to this role. The intersections of Camryn‘s identities make her uniquely prepared and knowledgeable of the necessity of normalizing, organizing, and operationalizing race equity efforts in all spaces. Before joining BMP, she attended the College of Charleston where she earned a Master of Public Administration degree. There, Camryn also served in the Community Assistance Program, a high-level capacity building clinic that serves nonprofit and municipal organizations. She co-managed four social-justice based projects and had hands-on experience with dismantling inequities, specifically White Supremacy Culture, in workplaces in addition to fervently advocating for greater representation of Black and African-American people in Charleston’s prominent industries. Camryn also co-led the cultivation of the City of Charleston‘s first-ever Race Equity Framework. Prior to this, Camryn earned a Bachelor of Art in both Political Science and Spanish at the College of Charleston. Camryn deeply values equity-oriented service and works to ensure that communities have the necessary tools and resources to affect sustainable change.
Senior Coordinator, Movement Building Programs
UyenThi Tran Myhre
UyenThi (pronounced “Wing-T”) Tran Myhre (she/her) is the Senior Coordinator of Movement Building programs at BMP, supporting communications work, curriculum development and trainings, and solidarity cohorts.
UyenThi is interested in storytelling and narrative-shifting as strategies for social change and creating a better world. She is part of the team at Project Yellow Dress, a platform uplifting voices and stories from the Southeast Asian diaspora. As a daughter of refugees, writer, and facilitator, her work explores the intersections of family, feminism, abolition, and beyond, often through a pop culture lens. She is a contributor to Bangtan Remixed: A Critical BTS Reader, out August 2024 from Duke University Press.
Senior Manager of Movement Building Programs
Adaku Utah
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, raised in Festac, Nigeria, grounded in her legacy of organizers, farmers and healers, Adaku (any pronouns) harnesses her seasoned skills as a political strategist, holistic healer, transformative facilitator, somatics coach and ritual artist as an act of love and commitment to her community. She enjoys co-cultivating social justice leaders and organizations to be more strategic, sustainable, and impactful. For over twenty years, their work has centered on movements for radical social change, with a focus on gender, reproductive, race, youth, and healing justice.
She most recently was the Organizing Director at the National Network of Abortion Funds, building and mobilizing organizing power and movement building efforts with 90+ member organizations, thousands of individual members, and network leaders across the country and world.
For the past 9 years, they have also been co-facilitating Harriet’s Apothecary, an all-Black collective of healers, organizers, and artists committed to embodying Harriet Tubman’s legacy of centering abolition and healing justice in how we organize to create and sustain liberation and transformation.
She is a Senior teacher and coach with BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity), a national leadership training program designed to help rebuild Black social justice infrastructure to organize Black communities more effectively and re-center Black leadership in the U.S. social justice movement. She also teaches and coaches with Generative Somatics, a national organization that supports social and climate justice movements in achieving their visions of a radically transformed society by bringing somatic transformation to movement leaders, organizations, and alliances.
Executive Director
Janis Rosheuvel
Janis Rosheuvel is a Black immigrant who was born in Guyana, South America. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Building Movement Project. For over two decades, Janis has organized with communities most impacted by injustice, following their lead and demanding just and right repair for past and ongoing harms. Previously, she helped to build strong collaborations and accountabilities in philanthropy at the Solidaire Network where she advanced a liberatory learning and evaluation process fostering deeper movement partnerships. At Solidaire she also helped raise and move over $40M to movement organizations working on a range of intersectional issues including racial and climate justice, land protection, sovereignty and stewardship, decarceration, housing and tenant rights, and reproductive justice.
Additionally, Janis worked as Executive Secretary for Racial Justice with United Methodist Women (now United Women in Faith) and was the Executive Director at Families for Freedom. She was a Fulbright Fellow to South Africa, where she documented the struggles of migrants, shack dwellers, and other working-class activists. She lectured for five years in the Department of Sociology at John Jay College on race and the criminalization of migrant life. Janis serves on the North Star Fund’s Let Us Breathe Fund Community Funding Committee, helping to resource Black-led organizing across New York City and the Hudson Valley. She holds an MA in Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England.
Advisory Board
BMP’s Advisory Board provides input and guidance on the organization’s strategic direction based on members' expertise and experience in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors.
Vice President of Learning & Impact - The Skillman Foundation
Laila Bell
Laila Bell joined The Skillman Foundation in March 2023 as the inaugural vice president of learning & impact. In this role, Laila designs the Foundation’s approach to using data, evidence, and experience to inform investments in the power of Detroit youth to create and influence change. Laila works with the team to foster a learning culture where the voices of youth, grant partners, and the community inform ongoing work and drive grantmaking efforts to achieve greater impact.
Laila previously held positions at The Duke Endowment and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where she advanced equitable evaluation practices and promoted mindsets, practices, and infrastructure to support the continuous improvement of grantmaking and strategy. She has led evaluations of complex philanthropic initiatives in early literacy, K-12 education, and postsecondary success. Laila also served as the director of research and data at NC Child, a nonprofit that advances public policies to improve the well-being of children and youth. In that role, she led the North Carolina KIDS COUNT project and collaborated with partners to design and launch several policy and systems change initiatives, including the North Carolina Health Equity Impact Assessment and NC Pathways to Grade-Level Reading.
A South Carolina native, Laila enjoys expressing her creativity as an amateur potter, avid reader, and live music enthusiast.
Coach - The Management Center
Marissa Graciosa
Marissa Graciosa is committed to social justice and has found ways to contribute to movement work as a community organizer, political strategist, and coalition builder. Now, as a coach with The Management Center, she can combine her many years of experience at the local and national levels with her great love for team building. Her most recent roles include Senior Advisor to the Building Movement Project and Director of Organizing at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In all her work, she has been known as a mentor, innovator, and champion of racial equity transformation. Marissa is rooted in over a decade of leadership in immigrant rights—most notably at the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) at the Center for Community Change, the Alliance for Citizenship, and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. She serves on several Boards of Directors, including her local social service agency, the Howard Area Community Center, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, and Planned Parenthood Illinois Action. She is also the co-founder of her neighborhood ICE raids response network. Marissa received her BA in Sociology from the University of Chicago and her Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She lives in Chicago with her beautiful blended family, including a feisty toddler, Emiliano.
Executive Director, Youth Leadership Programs - Aspen Institute
David McKinney
David McKinney has more than twenty-five years of experience working in the US social sector to advance equity and opportunity for young people, families, and marginalized communities. Prior to joining Aspen Institute, David served as executive vice president of public affairs with TNTP, where he oversaw philanthropy, communications, and business development, and led broad public engagement efforts to implement better experiences for students in K-12 schools—working with diverse system leaders, educators, donors, and community stakeholders nationally and in some 350 local communities. During his time at TNTP, the organization grew from $60MM to over $110MM in revenue.
Prior to his work in K-12 education, David served as the first director of the Center for Engagement and Neighborhood Building at the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities in Washington, D.C., and supported a network of nearly 500 direct service nonprofits to authentically engage with the neighborhoods and communities they served. He previously worked at Public Allies, a national service and leadership development organization, where he held numerous positions including vice president of programs and vice president of strategy and development. During his 14-year tenure with Public Allies, David led the growth of the organization’s programming and operations from 10 to 23 cities and grew a national network of alumni advocating with and for underestimated communities. David was honored with an Aspen Institute Fellowship for emerging nonprofit leaders in 2010 and selected by Independent Sector as an American Express NGen Fellow in 2009. David holds a bachelor’s degree in education policy from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and began his career as a community organizer in his hometown of Milwaukee. When not working, David can usually be found on a bicycle, swimming, or reading to a young person.
Chief Impact Officer - United Way
Dahnesh Medora
Dahnesh is the Chief Impact Officer of United Way, where he oversees core program areas, serves as the organization’s lead impact strategist and supports the development and implementation of the strategic plan. Prior to joining United Way, Dahnesh served as the Building Community Portfolio Director at the Meyer Memorial Trust. In this role, he helped create and manage one of Meyer’s largest grantmaking programs and channeled more than $30 million over six years to Oregon based nonprofits seeking to build social, economic and political power in communities of color.
Prior to Meyer, he served as the Senior Associate for Nonprofit Support at Education Northwest, supporting collective impact projects, nonprofits and governmental agencies like the Social Innovation Fund. As Director of Programs at the Nonprofit Association of Oregon, and at the National Community Development Institute, Dahnesh organized cohort programs focused on organizations serving communities of color. As Director of External Relations at the Tides Foundation, he also worked with new and emerging social justice projects across the United States.
When Dahnesh isn’t serving his community in his role, he enjoys spending time with and entertaining his daughter, who is still young enough to think he is hilarious.
Executive Vice President - Community Coalition
Aurea Montes-Rodriguez
Aurea Montes-Rodriguez is the executive vice president at Community Coalition and has been with the organization for more than 20 years. Born in Mexico and raised in south Los Angeles, Aurea has been a key leader responsible for building the organization’s youth programs to fight for educational equity, leading efforts to keep children in family care and out of the foster care system, helping to build organizing capacity in south L.A., and leading a capital campaign to transform the organization’s headquarters into a state-of-the-art hub for community organizing. Aurea is co-founder of Partners for Children South LA, a multiagency initiative that improves child development and reduces the risk of involvement with the child welfare system. She is an ex-officio board member with InnerCity Struggle.
Independent Consultant
Simran Noor
Simran Noor (she/her) is an interdependent consultant and coach specializing in strategy, organizational development, and movement building. Her work centers on achieving values alignment, particularly around racial and social justice. Simran has over fifteen years of experience working directly with impacted communities, leading organizational change, developing policy and strategy, and working within the philanthropic sector. As a survivor, Simran comes to the work with a deep commitment to healing and transformation informed by her study and practice of embodied leadership. She is dedicated to the study and embodiment of an anti-caste analysis, currently serving as a co-steward of South Asian Americans Leading Together(SAALT)’s transformation.